Gallery: Helpful Pairs of Salad "Hands"

The first time we saw a stocky pair of salad hands sticking out of a friend's salad bowl, we were not impressed. They look like bear claws, frankly. But over the years, we've noticed we tend to toss salads with our bare hands—so much more efficient than trying to use traditional tongs. We can really dig down into the bowl to get the dressing and ingredients perfectly combined. So now we're taking another look at these odd little salad servers...

We love the fact that most of these are actually named salad "hands." We'd like some that are small enough to feel comfortable but big enough to actually toss more effectively than our own hands. They should also be attractive, since they'll be sitting in our salad bowl on the table. Another bonus of salad "hands" versus tongs: They give a big, hefty portion with one scoop, which isn't always the case with spoon-sized tongs.

Here are some we like:

1. Melamine Serving Hands, £12 from Graham and Green. We love the clean simplicity of these plastic servers. The company is based in London, but you can call about shipping to the U.S.

2. Salad & Pasta Hands, $12.95 from Sur La Table. These have "dimples for your thumbs" to make them easy to grip.

3. Salad Hands in Various Colors, $10 from Sur La Table. Another set from this store, but much more modern—and dishwasher safe. There are four colors, but we're partial to the orange nestled into a bowl of green...

4. Umbra Sonata Salad Bowl with Servers, $20.99 from Target. You have to buy the whole set with this one, and the tongs are a little less hand-like than the others, but we love they way they hook onto the side of the bowl.

5. Nigella Lawson Black Serving Hands, $11.95 from Food Network. These are the only ones we're iffy on. The black coupled with the shape looks very 80s to us. What do you think? Hot or not?

Are you serving a big salad for Easter lunch? What do you think about this type of salad server?